Wayland Baptist football team travels to Colorado for opener

Butch Henderson admitted it. A year ago when the Wayland
Baptist Pioneers officially kicked off their first football season in 72 years
against Adams State University, the NCAA Division II Grizzlies manhandled his
young NAIA team.

"Adams State was the most physical team we played all year,"
the WBU head coach said in looking back on the game that ended with Adams State
winning with ease, 55-7. "After we played them we became a lot more physical."

Henderson is intent on the Pioneers not being manhandled by
Adams State again when Wayland opens the 2013 season at 8 p.m. Friday in
Alamosa, Colo. (For information on tracking the game online, go to www.wbuathletics.com.)

"The idea we approached this week with was ‘Meet the
Challenge,'" Henderson said. "Our challenge this week is to be as physical as
they are."

The coach is confident they will be.

"I feel like we are (ready)," he said.

The Pioneers figure to be better prepared if for no other
reason they have a season under their belts. Unlike the inaugural campaign when
Wayland fielded a team of almost all freshmen, the team's 78-player travel
roster this week shows 39 sophomores and 37 freshmen, plus one junior (defensive
end Holt Henderson) and one senior (tight end Josh Amador).

"A lot of these young men have been on our campus now for
three years (including a ‘leadership class' in 2011) and in our system for
three years," Henderson said. "Those young men have moved up another year in
age, and that maturity level allows you to be able to do more things. Add
around them the young men coming in new, and I feel good about where we are."

While Henderson feels confident in his team's preparation, he's
absolutely sure the Pioneers are ready to take the field against their first
opponent.

"They are really ready to play against somebody else," he
said. "We spent four weeks in the spring and four weeks in the fall going
against ourselves, so they're really ready to play against somebody other than
their teammates. They're also ready to get into a playing routine where you
work hard early in the week and taper down (as game day draws closer). For the
past month there's been no tapering down."

Part of the Pioneers' hard work the past few weeks has been
a series of intrasquad scrimmages, during which Henderson came away impressed.

"They went real
well," he said of the scrimmages. "They gave us a lot more live work. The kids have gotten after it and gotten a
lot better. We're a lot further along than we were last year. We've come a
million miles."

Seeing that improvement has inspired Henderson.

"That's fun," he said. "It gives you momentum, and (the
players) can feel that…they can sense that. Now we want to take off and
continue to gain momentum."

As much as the Pioneers are looking forward to the start of
the season, Adams State's Grizzlies are likely the same way. Unlike last season
when the Grizzlies had already played a game when they traveled to Plainview,
Friday night's contest will be the team's season-opener.

At 8-3, Adams State is coming off its best season ever in
the school's D-II era. The Grizzlies bring back nine total starters, including
a trio of all Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference defensive players in
linebackers Vince Coach and Connor Stevens and cornerback Cariel Brooks, all
juniors. Stevens is the team's top returning tackler with 77, followed by Coach
with 67.

On offense, the Grizzlies operate out of a multiple spread
directed by senior quarterback Cody Davies (6-2, 200). Davies passed for 1,155
yards and six touchdowns in 10 games a year ago, including 287 yards and three
TDs against Wayland before he was pulled for a substitute. Combined, the two Grizzlies
quarterbacks completed 27-of-29 passes while on the ground 10 Adams State
rushers racked up another 288 yards. The Grizzles outgained Wayland, 642 to
223.

Wayland lost starting quarterback Anthony Campuzano in the
third quarter of the game to a separated shoulder, which kept him out the next
three weeks. While Campuzano, a sophomore, is expected to start on Friday
night, Henderson expects sophomore Braden Hudson and redshirt-freshman Joshua
Houghtaling of Artesia, N.M., to get a chance directing Wayland's no-huddle
offense as well.

"All three of them are playing really well," the coach said.

The thing Henderson remembers most about last year's game is
turnovers. The Pioneers fumbled the ball away four times and threw one
interception.

"We moved the football, but they created a lot of
turnovers," he said. "Defensively, we lined up with their offense and played
pretty consistent, but just fighting from behind because of turnovers was
tough."

Henderson looks for the Grizzlies to be tough again this
season.

"They'll be very comparable (to last year)," he said. "They
had two or three seniors (including free safety James Ackel who is trying to
land a job in the NFL) who were really main players in their defense that they
lost, but I'm sure they reloaded with the same type of athletes."

NOTE: Wayland's junior varsity team will play the first of
four scheduled games at 2 p.m. Saturday at Greg Sherwood Memorial Bulldog
Stadium against Western Mountain Academy of Albuquerque, N.M.

TCU needed a win to keep NCAA Tourney hopes alive and they jumped out to a 38-17 halftime and they held off a 4th quarter run by the Lady Raiders as they posted a 72-60 at the United Supermarkets Arena Wednesday.

TCU needed a win to keep NCAA Tourney hopes alive and they jumped out to a 38-17 halftime and they held off a 4th quarter run by the Lady Raiders as they posted a 72-60 at the United Supermarkets Arena Wednesday.

Players from the United States pose for the camera before the semifinal round of the women's hockey game against Finland at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Gangneung, South Korea, Monday, Feb. 19, 2018. (Matt Slocum/Pool Photo via AP)

Team USA won the first meeting between the neighboring nations at the 1998 Winter Olympics. The Canucks have won every other meeting.

Team USA won the first meeting between the neighboring nations at the 1998 Winter Olympics. The Canucks have won every other meeting.